This paper presents a case study on the design, construction, commissioning and early operations of a major upgrade of the tailings storage facilities at Sarcheshmeh mine, Iran. The Sarcheshmeh mine is located in a semi-arid environment with average annual rainfall of 260 mm/year and evaporation of 2,800 mm/year. Make-up water supply comes from an alluvial borefield. The mine commenced operations around 1980. By 2000, the original tailings storage was full. Short-term measures to increase capacity were recognised as being both unsafe and unsustainable. In addition, the existing tailings and water management practices were inadequate for a proposed expansion. An initial options study was undertaken with the principal objectives of: Improving water utilisation. Providing storage for an additional 900 Mt of tailings at a production rate of 33 Mtpa. The recommended option was installation of paste thickeners together with down-valley discharge of the paste and thickened tailings. A full feasibility study and design followed. This paper will cover the following components of the project: Tailings properties. Thickener selection. Beach slope evaluation. The water management system. In this design 12 × 24 m paste thickeners were utilised, which is currently the largest installation of paste thickeners for copper. The underflow solid concentration was planned to be around 60% solids to achieve a maximum beach slope of 1.75%. Construction of the improvements to the system has been completed and the upgraded tailings management system is in its early years of operation with satisfactory outcomes. In this article, the various components of the system are described and outcomes are discussed.
Shortage of water (or a high cost of water) drives miners to look towards more costly water extraction technology for their tailings. Filtration technology offers greater water recovery than the more commonly used thickening technology, but this comes at a greater cost, both in terms of capital outlay as well as its operation. The transport of the filtered tailings exacerbates this problem, particularly where long distances come into play. The storage of the filtered tailings can sometimes be achieved at less cost than that of thickened tailings slurry, depending on the topography of the surrounding area. The economic feasibility of filtration technology over slurry thickening technology ultimately comes down to the cost of the make-up water that is required. This paper presents four different copper mining operations in which these two technologies have been considered for the treatment of tailings. In each case study the tailings dewatering, transport, storage and closure has been designed and costed, both in terms of capital and operating expenses. The overall findings of each study are presented and discussed. Finally, the break-even point for filtration at each mine has been estimated, in terms of the water cost. High rate thickener underflow 50-58% w/w High density / high compression thickener underflow 57-68% w/w
A controlling variable for a thickened tailings scheme design is the beach slope that will be formed by the tailings as they deposit. The slope will be mainly related to the discharge flow rate and the slurry rheology. The latter will, in turn, be dependent on the solids concentration of the thickener underflow. A higher solids concentration can be achieved by combining thickening and filtration. The objective is to still maintain a slurry that is pumpable and self-distributing at the tailings storage facility (TSF), rather than having to rely on trucks or on conveyors and stacking systems to manage a 'cake', but one that will deposit at a steeper beach slope than can be achieved by thickening alone. The use of ultra paste has the potential to broaden the range of topographic conditions that will suit thickened tailings discharge.The ultra paste thickened option is when a portion of the tailings is separated and dewatered in a more advanced dewatering unit (in this case filter presses). The filtered cake will then be re-mixed with the paste thickener underflow stream.This paper presents a case study for a large copper mine in which underflow from a series of paste thickeners with a nominal tonnage of 3,660 tph at 59% solids concentration would be mixed with 1,363 tph of filter cake at 80% solids concentration. The combined tailings (ultra paste) would be discharged equally into two open channels (flumes) at the combined solids concentration of 63.5%.The ultimate goal of adopting an 'ultra paste' scheme is to produce homogenous consistency tailings, hence proper mixing of the paste and filter cake has to occur. In this study based on a series of tests, the mixing requirement has been assessed. The study also covers a conceptual investigation of natural turbulent mixing (NTM) of the filtered tailings with paste thickened tailings and issues associated with the deposition of the combined tailings, the ultra paste, into the existing TSF.In the conclusion, the study indicates that NTM can possibly occur only for the case in which the total tailings are discharged into one channel, which is not practical due to limitations with regards to tailings management. Hence, mechanical mixing has been recommended in this case.
This paper presents a case study on the design of a thickened tailings storage facility (TSF) for a proposed open pit copper mine at Dareh Alou, Iran. Dareh Alou mine is a new copper mine owned by National Iranian Copper Company (NICICO). It is located in the Kerman Province of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The nominal production rate is 7 Mtpa for a life-of-mine (LOM) of 25 years. Planning was undertaken for the accommodation of a total of 175 Mt of tailings. The Dareh Alou mine site is located on a sloping side of a valley that is surrounded by hills, grading up to steep mountainous terrain. Since this is a greenfield project the location of the concentrator was selected in conjunction with the tailings deposition options study. Five concentrator locations with various ore transportation options have been investigated together with the tailings and water management study. The result of the study indicated that the best concentrator plant location was at RL 3050 m at approximately 2.5 km from the preferred TSF location. Various tailings and water management options were evaluated, including high rate, high density/high compression, and paste thickeners. These dewatering options were studied alongside the combinations of various TSF and thickener locations. The outcome of the options study indicates that if the price of make-up water is not included in the analyses, the preferred option is utilisation of high rate thickeners. However, after inclusion of make-up water at a rate of USD 1/m 3 , the preferred option would be the utilisation of high density/high compression thickeners. In this case, the distance between the concentrator and the TSF is such that transportation of un-thickened tailings to thickeners located adjacent to the TSF is the most efficient option. Also, thickening the tailings will provide benefits in reducing the embankment construction cost even though relatively large embankments will be required to close off the valley site.
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